The MacGruber Pepsi ads were sandwiched in between the usual commercials that populate Saturday late night television. The first, for example, came after a trailer for Pink Panther 2, which had conveniently played after Steve Martin’s monologue—as well as one of SNL’s “real” fake commercials, featuring Kristen Wiig pitching “edible pampers” (it was as gross as it sounds).

At least the ads were self-depreciating, with MacGruber’s character constantly flubbing up the escape with incessant references to soda, new Pepsi clothing, and even a name change. All the while, the real MacGyver plays the straight man, criticising the product placement and eventually calling our hero the sell out he is.

Even the musical lead-in, which features a machismo singer laying down what MacGruber is all about, succumbed to the product placement fever:

I’d say it’s a sad, sad day, but I’m laughing. Oh well. [YouTube]

This iPhone/iPod touch mod uses a readily-available airsickness bag to hold your video player hands-free. Amazing, we know, but things only get better from there. As the bag is simply tucked into one’s tray table, its height can be adjusted to achieve the optimum viewing angle. Let’s see you do that with cardboard, terrorists! [hodenmumps via Random Good Stuff]

Cases
A case will usually be the first thing people buy for their pods, and the first thing they’ll lose. Luckily, they’re just about the easiest thing to replace yourself. The most obvious solution is a custom-tailored sock, chosen to suit your taste in colour and aroma and fitted to suit your choice in iPod. For a more refined look, sewing together some inner tube and suede will make for a stylish pouch, while utilitarians can opt for the quick, versatile rubber-only approach. If you’re just too quirky for a regular case, the venerable Altoid Nano case might get the attention you crave, while the legitimately natty cut-up record sleeve case will do the job just as well, if not better.

Speakers
If you’re handy with a soldering iron and have some old audio equipment lying around, there’s no reason to dump dollars on a full-fledged iPod speaker dock when you can just build one yourself. Construction homemade unamplified speakers — which sound surprisingly good — is much less of an ordeal. Disposable cups and sheets of printer paper make great little megaphones for your earbuds, and lend themselves well to mounting as a part of a kid-friendly makeshift home stereo.

Docks and Stands
Apple gives iPod/iPhone buyers just about everything they need to throw together a huge variety of charging and sync docks — even the commercial ones are pretty much just the sync wire with some plastic trim. This hack starts small: fantastic iPhone and iPod Touch docks can be made with nothing but a binder clip. The possibilities for LEGO docks are limitless, but generally end up looking like an iThrone. This paperclip box dock provides a good template for chopping an iPod cable into just about anything of a similar shape. The paper clips themselves can be twisted into a 20-second stand, just as a business card can be origamically (?) reshaped into the same.

Other
In the commercial world, this space is inhabited by the shrouded likes of Brando. But who doesn’t love that stuff? If you’re looking for a jury-rigged AA iPod charging solutions, there’s no reason to surrender your credit card number to an iffy Chinese e-commerce site. The same goes for the iPhone 3D image viewing apparatus, though I’m not even sure there’s buyable analogue for that, Chinese or not. iPhone macro lenses are cool, but almost certainly not worth paying for. Last, and probably least, even though you can’t put a price on security, you can reduce the cost of paranoia.

Hat tip to Lifehacker, MAKE and Instructables.

Dealzmodo Hacks are intended to help you sustain your crippling gadget addiction through tighter times. If you come across any on your own that are particularly useful, send it to our tips line (Subject: Dealzmodo Hack). Check back every Thursday for free DIY tricks to breathe new life into hardware that you already own.

The toothpicks hold the cups together, and a small hole at the base of the top cup holds an earbud. The sound is magnified due to the shape of the cup, not any fancy-schmancy “electronics.” It may not compete with, you know, real speakers, but Dmitry’s got a good sense of humour about him and it looks like a fun project for the incredibly bored. [Yanko]

Leatherman’s 25th annivesary Argentum collection is more for show than cutting a dangerous bow line, but each of these extravagant “tools” is still fully functional.

The collection ranges from the modest US$12,000 Acanto to the US$40,000 Dorado, and are the work of Argentinean artist Adrian Pollarols. You can see the opulence of the finished product taking shape in these early sketches:Suddenly those perilous trips to the Ritz ice machine down the hall aren’t looking so bad, after all. [Leatherman via Boing Boing]

[Saturday Night Live]

Zlotoff mentioned he somehow ended up with the movie rights years ago (extremely uncommon), giving him full control over the film. While few specifics were mentioned, and no formal announcement has been made, its extremely promising that the man with the power to make the film is getting the ball rolling. The question is…do you bring back Richard Dean Anderson as old MacGyver, or bring in a younger, Christian Bale-type to reprise the role of makeshift gadget god? [Maker Faire on Giz]